


Consortem

by narceus



Series: Crown and Comfort [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Marriage of Convenience, Other characters in background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 11:04:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narceus/pseuds/narceus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Old French <i>consorte</i>, from Latin <i>consortem</i> "partner, comrade; wife, brother, sister"</p><p>Noun use of adjective meaning "having the same lot, of the same fortune," from com- "with" (see com-) + sors "a share, lot"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consortem

**Author's Note:**

> AKA, 'the fic in which Scott and Lydia are badasses'.
> 
> Additional warnings at the bottom which you may want to check out; none of the violence in this is particularly graphic/on-screen, but there is a lot of implication of rape and especially torture.
> 
> The elves in here are full-on OC's, and were all named, in Sindarin, from [this name generator](http://elf.namegeneratorfun.com/). No, they're not Tolkien elves in the least, but I like name generators :)
> 
> Summary for this fic, as well as _Aliier/Aliance_ , cribbed from this [online dictionary of etymology](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php).

Scott’s adapting to palace life reasonably well, Lydia thinks. It’s worth being a little bit impressed: Scott has to figure out how to navigate life in the court, and life as her husband, all at the same time. Lydia’s only got to work out how to deal with marriage.

He still seems taken aback by little things, like having servants to do his mending for him. Lydia thinks he’d agree with her that the weirdest part of _being married_ is working out how to share a bed.

It’s quite a large bed, and Scott grew up poor so she’s sure he’s shared before at some point or another, but it clearly hasn’t been any time recently. Half the time he’s tired enough to sprawl all over two thirds of it without even thinking. The rest of the time, Scott curls himself up on the farthest edge of the mattress, like he’s trying to stay as far out of her way as he can, and possibly hoping to apologize for existing without actually having to say the words. For her own part, Lydia keeps waking up and realizing that she’s somehow, once again, managed to accumulate all of the pillows over on her side of the bed. She mounds them up like fortress walls in her sleep. Scott hasn’t complained yet.

It’s easy enough to get used to eating breakfast with him every day or the flowers he still brings her back from his hunts, a little harder to normalize the fierce flash of pride she gets every time she hears he’s dumped General Hale on his ass in the practice ring. Lydia’s used to being alone. She’s not used to having somebody there with her for certain things.

When she wakes up in the pitch dark of her room, thrashing against the tangle of covers, sweating and panting from the memory of Peter Hale’s eyes boring into her mind, and feels the hand close around her arm, Lydia screams.

“Lydia! Lydia, it’s just me!” Scott’s hand pulls away, and Lydia curls backwards from it, shaking so hard she thinks she might throw up.

“Don’t touch me,” she snaps raggedly. She can hear Scott fumbling for something in the dark.

“Okay, I won’t, I promise. Can I light a candle?”

“Fine,” Lydia whispers. The room’s too dark, Peter’s _gone_ , she knows he’s gone, this is how monarchs become remembered for insanity and paranoia, she knows her mind is playing tricks on her but she can _feel_ him watching her, still, in the darkness--

There’s the snick of a fire striker, and a tiny spark swells into a candle’s glow. Lydia holds every muscle stiff while Scott touches the taper to wick after wick on the candelabra by his bedside, until there’s enough light to see his face, not Peter, not Peter, _not Peter_. He hangs cautiously back, watching her, while Lydia shudders and tries to breathe instead of sob.

“Please stop looking at me,” Lydia says, and buries her face in the nearest pillow. The shaking is starting to calm down, at least. She’s not afraid her teeth are going to clack together any more.

“Are you okay?” Scott asks hesitantly.

“Do I look okay?” Lydia snaps.

“You told me not to look at you,” Scott says, so confused that he startles a laugh right out of her. Lydia peeks over the edge of the pillow and sees Scott studiously looking at the ceiling, not even glancing in her direction. She can still taste the fear in the back of her mouth, but it’s the first time she can remember smiling, even for a second, after a nightmare like that.

“Thank you,” Lydia says after a moment. Slowly, hesitantly, she reaches a hand out across the mattress to find his. She’s not used to having _anybody_ to clutch onto after dreams like this one, but Scott’s palm is comfortingly warm, solid, _real_ in her hand, and when she squeezes, he squeezes back.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Scott asks, still staring with perfect obedience at the ceiling. “Do you think it would help?”

Lydia doesn’t talk about the dreams of Peter Hale. Lydia doesn’t talk about Peter Hale, at all, ever, not with anybody, because what kind of queen has screaming, sobbing nightmares about somebody who’s no better than a ghost? The same kind of queen who lets her own trusted advisor take her over in the first place, sneak into her head until she can’t tell what’s truth and what’s illusion, until she can’t be trusted to rule her way out of a paper bag. Lydia’s not that queen. She’s not.

On the other hand, Lydia managed to find and marry probably the most decent man in all of Cali, North, South, and even Cali Baja down past the other side of The Holly’s Wood. What was the point, if she’s going to keep doing this all _alone_?

“General Hale,” she says, up to the ceiling just like Scott. “The old one, before Derek. We didn’t notice he’d turned traitor for a while. He liked to make me see things that weren’t there.”

“I’m sorry,” Scott says. “That sounds _really_ terrible. What did he do?”

Maybe it’s just that Scott sounds genuinely curious. He can’t possibly know any of the story, even the servants don’t really gossip about it any more, beyond the barest public details. Maybe it’s just that Lydia’s not going to sleep again tonight, and so long as they’re talking, Scott won’t either.

“After his family died,” Lydia begins carefully, “he started to realize how mad he’d always actually been.”

+++

Scott finds Stiles the next morning, after only a few false starts, in the library. Stiles doesn’t really _have_ a job in the palace, exactly. He’s not really a servant, but Lydia hasn’t given him a title, either. He’s the King’s man, the way Scott’s heard it around. He’s here to do whatever the King asks of him, at any time, to be implicitly trustworthy in everything he does, and to serve the crown in any capacity he can.

Scott always thinks that is _way_ too fancy and impressive a job description for Stiles. Then somebody bows to Scott in the hall, or starts a sentence with ‘Your Majesty,’ and Scott remembers once again, holy fuck, _he’s_ the King now, which kind of puts things in perspective. If the perspective is, _what the fuck even is Scott’s life anymore?_

It still feels weird that Stiles gets a special position in the royal household just for hanging out and telling Scott his ideas suck, but there aren’t that many people around who’re willing to say things like that to Scott these days, and his mom went back home as soon as the snow cleared. Stiles is the only person who’s willing to laugh at Scott in front of his face instead of behind his back for not being able to use a sword. Which Scott actually really appreciates, because he’s _terrible_ with a sword. There weren’t a lot of fancy knight’s weapons just lying around in Beacon Hills. Scott could totally kick General Hale’s ass in a fight with a harvest scythe, but funnily enough, General Hale hasn’t asked.

Scott wouldn’t want to do this whole King thing without Stiles around. Scott can’t really tease anybody else anymore without feeling like a bully. Every time Scott starts to feel like he’s fallen sideways into some strange faerie world, Stiles is there to make an idiot out of himself in front of half a dozen ladies-in-waiting, and all of the sudden everything feels just like old times.

And then there are times like this, where Scott needs to get something done that can only end in danger, and somebody getting hurt, and probably a whole lot of blood, and Stiles is the only person in the world who Scott can imagine trusting enough to do it with him. This is a little like old times, too. When they knew the Canadians would be coming up over the ridge, Scott would turn to his right, and Stiles would always be right there, ready to make plans, ready to go. Stiles is the guy Scott goes to when somebody is going to die, one way or another, and Scott has to find a way to decide who.

“Hey,” Scott says, startling Stiles out of a doze. He’s wearing the same thing he wore yesterday. He fell asleep with his head on a pile of books last night. Again.

“I did not leave that horse there,” Stiles swears, blearily blinking his eyes open. “I mean. What’s up?”

“You missed breakfast,” Scott says. Stiles scowls.

“You’d think somebody would care about the stomach of the poor guy wrecking his back over library books,” he says. “You couldn’t have found me a couple of hours ago? Or last night, when I thought trying to get all the way through Elowyn the Boring’s history of the pre-schism Cali Empire was a good idea?”

“Come on, if you come back to my room I can make them bring you something,” Scott says. “I’m kind of important around here.”

“Yeah right,” Stiles says, but pushes himself groggily to his feet. “Ugh, can you assign, like, three hot serving girls whose only job is to work all the kinks out of my back when I do shit like that?”

“How about I just assign one of General Hale’s pages to keep you from falling asleep on a library table in the first place?” Scott asks. Stiles rolls his eyes.

“Fine,” he says. “So what brings His Majesty down to the library, anyway?” Scott knows Stiles well enough to hear the seriousness behind the question. Stiles knows Scott well enough to know there’s something going on already. Scott probably doesn’t look any better-rested than Stiles is, this morning.

“We’ll talk about it in my rooms,” Scott says. Usually he doesn’t care who hears what he has to say, but Lydia’s got ears everywhere in the palace that people go. He doesn’t think he wants to know her reaction if she finds out he’s hunting down information on Peter Hale.

+++

It's pretty easy to track public opinion about the Queen and King. Very easy, actually. Stiles reminds Scott of it over breakfast when he's feeling snappish.

The King is country-soft, eyes like a cow, heart the same way. He's too pesant to rule. He knows all the pages in the castle by name. He's no kind of warrior, certainly, can't wield a sword, frowns when General Hale talks about bloodshed. He's probably an idiot, sheep-brained as well as cow-hearted. He's a loaf of warm bread, pleasant and bland and utterly common.

The Queen is diamond, crystal hard. She's rare and beautiful and perfect, oh yes. She's all sharp edges and glamour and shine. Nothing mars her, never a scratch. Point a light through her and she's as empty as clear glass, no blood, no heart, no center at all.

Royals aren't meant to interfere with the running of things, anyway. The King and Queen of North Cali are fine to look at, to cheer on in parades, to smile upon their golden thrones and cost nothing to anyone who stays clear of the Queen's whims and foibles.

That's probably why the elves show up.

+++

It's summer, it's hot, and it's envoy season.

Travel is easier in the summer, for one thing, and for another, nobody wants to be down in the heat of South Cali in the middle of July. Half the kingdom's a desert. The other half of the kingdom, the reason the whole place doesn't just wither up and die, that's the Wood. Most humans are safer in the desert.

North Cali always gets a handful of Southern nobles every year, distant cousins and minor dignitaries just slightly too important to turn away. They always trail little overbright bits of magic, flash and gaudy against the good brown and green trees and vineyards of Lydia's kingdom. In The Holly's Wood it's different. Fae magic and illusion are around every corner, and power there hasn't got a single thing to do with whether something is _real_ or not.

Lydia’s used to the annual influx. Last year she’d missed the whole thing, and didn’t regret it one bit. This year, of course, she and Scott will be hosting weekly tourneys, galas, and royal garden parties, and attending a whole flurry of events in and around the capitol in between. Their summer wardrobes are just barely ready in time. Poor Scott’s been subjected to dance lessons for the past two months. He’ll learn to cope.

Not even Jackson ever really understood, but Lydia knows very well that the most important work of ruling a kingdom happens at parties. Oh, Scott’s been working his way deeper and deeper into the running of the army, but North Cali’s not at war, and Lydia doesn’t intend that it should be any time soon. Parties are for showing off your wealth, because wealth means power, and for assessing just how wealthy your nobles and neighbors actually are. They’re for worming your way into people’s good graces, and getting everybody just drunk enough to loosen their tongues in your direction. Deals get hashed out, in all their gritty details, in offices and back parlors and interminable council meetings, but the ideas are planted and the agreements are sealed on dance floors and around punch tables, every single time.

They don’t bother to release the ball schedule ahead of time. It’s enough for the kitchens and the servants to know that there’s always another one, right around the corner. It means that Lydia can change things with a wave of her hand on a moment’s notice, and turn a simple evening of drinks and dancing into a grand fete in honor of whichever self-important foreigner has just come riding through the palace gates whenever she needs to. The tourney schedule came out in April, so the wandering knights would know when to come fill out the field, but there are only four tournaments over the course of the summer. And those are _always_ in Lydia’s honor.

So when Lydia gets word that a small column of carriages and riders have been spotted on the great southroad, glittering like rubies in the sun, she nods to one of her maids to add some extra sparkle to tonight’s garden pavillion and settles in to wait in the small receiving room. The grand receiving room is for things like treaties, and weddings, and foreign heads of state, and certainly for days that aren’t hot enough to melt glass. The small receiving room actually has _windows_.

It’s a choice that turns out to be a mistake, Lydia will admit that. On the other hand, given the information she had at the time, it was a perfectly reasonable decision, and she will not be blamed for acting on it. There’s no precedent for the first cousin of an elven King to pay a visit, and absolutely no justification for the poor manners of doing so without any sort of notice.

+++

Bainthaurion the Glorious, greater prince of the Twilight Court, sweeps in surrounded by an entourage of elves and part-elves and odd fae things, bearing equally impressive names and impressive sneers. There’s Rirosseth the Spendid, blood-crowned lesser princess, dressed in bright red from her lips to the heels of her shoes, who apparently owns the carriages they’re using; Ethirdir of Shadows and Saewien of Dusk, perfectly-matched twins, male and female, who creep around the edges of rooms and never says a word; Ladrengiliel, whose very footprints sparkle, and whose giggle sounds _exactly_ like the tinkling of tiny bells. There are more, but they don’t introduce themselves. Lydia’s fairly sure they trade faces and forms when nobody’s looking at them.

The elves make the mostly-human-ish visitors from South Cali nervous. They make Derek nervous, although Lydia’s not entirely sure that anyone else can tell. Derek doesn’t tend to have visible emotions much. They make Scott nervous. They make Lydia smile, very politely, and very very thinly. She is very, very quiet when she fumes.

Lydia’s no fool, and Bainthaurion must be hundreds of years old, though he and all his entourage have slathered enough glamours and enchantments over themselves to look about twenty-four. That he’s dangerous goes without saying. Lydia’s more concerned about the fact that he’s arrogant, prickly, quick to take offense, and doesn’t appear to have much in the way of impulse control at all.

The elves all sweep around Lydia’s palace with a permanent air of ‘ _how quaint_ ,’ trailed by their own shadows and an ever-changing handful of Lydia’s own people desperate to get closer to their unearthly beauty. It’s rude. Being a hostess, however, means extending perfect courtesy even to the rudest of guests, so Lydia smiles and proclaims two balls in Bainthaurion’s honor, a party each for Rirosseth and Ladrengiliel, a royal hunt in the name of the twins, and she smiles, and smiles, and _smiles_ , tight and sharp as the edge of a perfectly smooth slice of glass.

Bainthaurion looks at her like he’s judging her for something, and continually finds her lacking. He looks like this lack doesn’t surprise him very much. He looks very contented to see it.

Lydia may be reading too much into the facial expressions and body language of some forest spirit made of tree bark and ancient magic and baby’s laughter, but there was no mistaking the ugly, triumphant sneer when he introduced himself in the lesser receiving room.

“Is it always your custom, Your Majesty, to greet foreign royalty so informally?” he’d asked. Lydia had smiled back, for once terribly afraid that it didn’t make her look like a queen at all, just a little girl pretending.

“When their messengers get lost on their way ahead,” she said, very sweetly, because the only way past a fear like that is to pretend as though it doesn’t exist. Bainthaurion had smiled like he’d _won_ something that Lydia was very sure she did not want to let him have at all.

“I hope the hospitality of our northern cousins improves,” he’d said.

Well. Lydia will see about that.

+++

The High Summer Tournament takes place three weeks into the elves’ stay. It’s the biggest festival of the year, dozens of different competitions beyond the rules of a formal tourney, archery and horsemanship and pie-baking and everything that anyone could hope to compete at, all thrown open to the public on the palace grounds. Lydia’s actually letting Scott fight in the open tournament this year. She found him a glaive that’s a little bit more impressive than the barrel staves he’s used to. He’s pretty sure he’s not going to win, but he’s not going to make the mistake of telling her that.

The festival is in the Queen’s honor, because the festival is _always_ in the Queen’s honor, but Scott doesn’t really like the looks Lydia got from the elves when she announced it. As far as he knows, none of the elves are competing. That’s...something, anyway.

Two hours before the fight, Scott _finally_ remembers that his padded gloves are back in his chambers, and of course he doesn’t want a page to go get them, he can grab them himself. He’s halfway across the palace when one of the elves melts out of the shadows in front of him.

It’s the red one. Rirosseth. She’s holding a long, red ribbon in one hand.

“You’re competing today,” she says. She’s actually taller than him. Scott is not really used to women who are taller than him.

“I am,” he says, and even manages to make it not sound like a question.

“Well,” the faerie says. “Here’s your chance to make up for your wife’s hospitality.” She raises the ribbon, and Scott honestly has no idea why for a second, until she continues, “Dedicate your fight to me, Scott of Beacon Hills. Wear my colors. Win for me.”

“I don’t think Lydia would like that very much,” Scott says, which is a really, really big understatement. Lydia spent an hour last night holding up handkerchiefs against his armor and next to his face so she could decide on the perfect color for her favor today, to match his eyes. Also, Scott’s _married_ to her. He’s pretty sure that means that he’s meant to be fighting in Lydia’s honor, not...well, he can’t really think of a situation where Lydia would approve of him fighting in the name of anybody else, in a tournament like this. Fighting _for_ someone, sure, if Rirosseth needed a champion to protect her from something... “You’re not in any trouble, are you?”

“No, I think you’ve got that backwards,” says Rirosseth. “Your wife prickles like a hedgehog and calls herself a queen. She’s the most vain and selfish sort of humanity, but you...” The elf reaches out one perfect, long-fingered hand, to brush the side of Scott’s face. Scott jerks back on reflex. “You’re a pup who needs a better master, aren’t you?”

“The tournament is out past the rose garden,” Scott says. “If you just go down this hall and down the stairs, anybody you see can show you where to go.”

Rirosseth laughs, and it’s actually _really disturbing_ how much it sounds like a bell. Voices shouldn’t sound like _metal_. “Run along, little puppy,” she says. “I’ll see you winning _my_ victory later.”

Scott ends up losing miserably in the second round, wearing Lydia’s bright green handkerchief bound up around his arm where everyone can see, to one of Derek Hale’s squires. Fighting in any armor at all, even the flexible leather stuff that Lydia insisted he _had_ to wear, is still really new and uncomfortable to him. He glances up at the royal box at just the wrong moment, just in time to see Lydia flinch when Bainthaurion leans up and whispers in her ear, and that’s all it takes. Even Stiles does better, and he’s using an unbladed quarterstaff. At least Stiles gets taken out by Sir Danny. Scott loses to _Boyd_. Boyd’s spent his whole career being trained by _Derek._

“Well, he was five times bigger than you,” Lydia says tartly later. She’s trying to be soothing. She’s not very good at it. Then Scott tells her about the faerie.

Lydia’s mood does not improve.

“She can’t have you,” Lydia says flatly. “You’re _mine_. She can’t have you. If she thinks she’s going to swan into my palace, in my kingdom, and start eyeing _my_ things--”

“Lydia,” Scott tries, but there’s no stopping her like this.

“--when _I_ am the one that found you, and dragged you back here, and have been putting in all of the effort of forcibly turning you into a real king--”

“Hey, Lydia, come on now--”

“--which hasn’t exactly been _easy_ , I would like to point out, and if she thinks she can just come in here and start going through my belongings--”

“Lydia, I _don’t belong to you!_ ” Scott exclaims finally, frustrated. Lydia stops.

“Oh?” she asks. That tone of voice is normally pretty intimidating, but Scott’s known Lydia for like three quarters of a year now. He’s not _afraid_ of her any more, if he ever was. That’s the _point_.

“I’m not your _property_ ,” Scott says. “We’re married, that doesn’t mean I’m your _pet_. She can’t have me because I don’t want her to have _me_ , not because I’m already yours.”

“So if you did want her, that would be fine, then?” Lydia asks, in the particularly pointed way where Scott can never quite tell if she’s actually hurt or not. He runs his hand through his hair and shakes his head, tries not to groan.

“No, Lydia, you know I’d never do that to you,” he says. “Or at least you _should_ know that. I’m here because I made a promise to be here. You asked me to marry you, and I said yes. I agreed to this. I’m in this with you, I’m your _husband_ , so why can’t we just act like it for once?”

“Well,” Lydia says, after a moment. “She certainly has no idea who she’s trying to take on, does she?”

“Lydia, for _once_ ,” Scott says in exasperation, “can we just do this _together_? We both know they’re up to no good. This is my kingdom too, you know. I want to get rid of the elves just as much as you do.”

Lydia presses her lips together, and she’s probably annoyed, but you know what? Sometimes Scott gets annoyed too.

“Fine,” Lydia says. “We work together. He hasn’t said it yet, but Bainthaurion’s been looking for any excuse to claim this kingdom on a technicality since he got here. Help me get rid of him, and you can _stay_ king, since you obviously like the job so much.”

Scott lets out a deep breath. _Finally_. “Okay,” he says. “What do you know about elves?”

+++

They end up going to Deaton for advice, and to Stiles, although Lydia convinces Scott to leave Derek out of the loop on this one. It’s not that Scott particularly values Derek’s opinion, he just doesn’t think that keeping secrets from the guy who’s supposed to be their head military leader is going to work out in the long run. Well, fine, they can have this argument some other time. Scott’s pretty sure it will come up again.

Stiles is looking a little ragged these days, which has Scott feeling sort of guilty, but he doesn’t say anything about the search for Peter in front of Lydia even when she comments on how frequently he’s been gone of late. That’s why Stiles is Scott’s best friend in the world. Lydia’s got enough to worry about right now without bringing Peter Hale into the mix. And it’s probably better for everyone that Stiles is spending most of his time as far away from the elven emissaries as possible, anyway.

What they come up with is this: cold iron will hurt them, mountain ash repels them, and elves cannot--cannot? will not?--they _do_ not ever break an agreement once made.

“Great,” says Stiles. “So let’s trap one in a circle of mountain ash and hit it with an iron stick until they agree to get the hell out of here and not come back.” 

Lydia gets the look on her face like it’s a good thing Scott’s pretty, because she wouldn’t put up with his friends for anything else. “And what do you think the _rest_ of them will be doing, while we do that?” she asks. 

“Can we trick them?” Scott asks, glancing between Deaton, Stiles, and Lydia. “Will they get angry?”

“Oh, they’ll be furious without question, but if we do it right there won’t be much they can do about it,” Deaton says. “Wait here, I may have just the book.”

He comes back not with a spellbook, but a worn book of myths and fairytales. For the first time all morning, Lydia begins to smile.

“I knew there was a reason I kept you,” she says. “So what can we find?”

+++

There’s always something to learn from trickster stories. If Scott and Stiles both do their parts, it won’t even matter if Bainthaurion realizes what they’ve done. The agreement will still be perfectly valid. Lydia just has to keep smiling.

Luckily, Lydia has spent a very long time perfecting her array of smiles.

Stiles has the first job: running his mouth off until Ethirdir and Saewen challenge him and Scott to a fight. Only about two-thirds of it is baseless bragging. Lydia has watched Scott and Stiles spar, against each other and at each other’s sides, and they may only be middling armsmen on their own, but they can track and compensate for each other’s every move like few she’s seen. Of course, Ethirdir and Saewen move like they’re each other’s shadows just walking through a room. Lydia’s a little worried about Saewen, in particular; she’s not entirely sure Scott can bring himself to hit a girl.

He’s going to have to manage. On to step two.

Step two is that Scott backs Stiles up, as always, and the boys stumble their way headlong into the bet. If Lydia weren’t arranging this whole thing herself, she’d probably be furiously angry with them for managing to gamble away half of Beacon Hills, especially in return for worthless faerie gold. She’s very good at making her lips go thin and disapproving. Scott’s very good at looking suitably cowed.

“Well,” Lydia says briskly at the dinner table. “It’s a good thing that Scott and Stiles will be winning, isn’t it?”

“My queen, we shall see,” says Bainthaurion, and raises his goblet in toast. Lydia smiles at him with precisely the right touch of grace and frostiness, raises her own glass, and drinks.

Step three. Step three should by all rights be on Stiles, but even though he’s a marginally better liar than Scott, people are about a hundred times more likely to believe he’s lying, so Scott it will have to be. The important part, of course, is that none of this is a lie.

Step three is Scott and Deaton in the rose garden, while one of the twins listens from the shadows, just an hour before the proposed match. It should be enough time. If not, Lydia’s going to be out half a kingdom here.

No. Old trickster plans are the best. All Scott needs to do is be his own, painfully honest self, and worry all over Deaton about what will happen to his beloved Beacon Hills if a few faeries win it in a sparring match, preferably while going on and on about Beacon Hills in glowing terms that make it very clear that the province is nothing but a few benighted hills and constant border raids, as far away from South Cali as it’s possible to be. All Deaton needs to do is reassure Scott that Beacon Hills will be just fine, preferably while mentioning at great length that if the faeries do win lordship, they’ll be bound by law to actually live on and govern the land they now own. All Stiles needs to do is make sure that Saewen or Ethirdir are within hearing range at the time. It’s easy. A monkey could do it.

All Lydia needs to do is keep Rirosseth and Ladrengilel and especially, always, always Bainthaurion distracted and occupied on the other side of the palace until the fight is meant to start. 

It’s not impossible. It’s not even hard. Besides, she needs to set up for step four.

Step four is two hours of letting her smile grow thinner and more fixed, prouder and more determined, all at once. Step four is letting the faerie ladies into the royal box above the tournament grounds first, and letting her whole manner go icy as Bainthaurion takes her hand. Step four is settling into her seat, far out of earshot from the field, and selling her frustration with everything she’s got.

“What if we made this easy,” Lydia says, carefully examining her nails. “I’ve had enough, Bainthaurion. You want my kingdom.”

“You can’t deny we’d rule it better, your Majesty,” says the elf. “Perhaps if you had more experienced advisors...”

“Like you?” asks Lydia. “I’m perfectly fine with the advisors I have, actually. And you know, part of the joy of being Queen is that this kingdom is mine to make prosper or to run into the ground, whichever I choose. Not yours.”

“So it’s come to such blunt terms, has it, your Majesty?” asks Bainthaurion.

“Let me be blunter,” says Lydia. “I would very much like it if you and your entourage, who have been nothing but demanding and rude throughout your stay, would leave my kingdom in peace.”

“Well,” Bainthaurion says. “Let’s make it a wager, shall we?” He nods at the field. “If your King and his man are victorious, we’ll go.”

“Good,” says Lydia. “I want your word: you and your entire entourage, never to return.”

“Very well,” Bainthaurion says. “But when we win, this palace and all the lands south of the Central Valley become mine.”

“You won’t win,” Lydia says, with just a little less certainty than she actually feels.

“Your word, your Majesty,” he requests. “As I give you mine.”

“Fine,” Lydia says. “My word. If your elves win this contest, this palace and all the lands south of the Central Valley are yours.” It’s not quite a third of the kingdom. If she were annoyed and frustrated enough, it’s conceivable that Lydia might have wagered it even without being sure that the elves would throw the fight.

So that’s step four completed.

Step five is on Scott and Stiles yet again. Too much of this plan is theirs, there’s too much that could go wrong, and the fact of the matter is, Lydia’s still not sure she didn’t just barter a third of her kingdom away. But there’s nothing for it now except to watch and to wait.

Step five is a fight, humans and polearms against fae and their daggers, the most bizarrely mismatched challenge this pitch has seen in many long years. Ethirdir and Saewen don’t even bother to hide how little they’re actually trying to win. Scott and Stiles still nearly lose. Scott can’t, in fact, stab a girl with a polearm. Thanks be for Stiles, just this once.

Step six is trying not to gloat too hard when accepting victory. Lydia doesn’t try as much with that one.

+++

Elves don’t like being bested, but some of them do respect the mortals who are gutsy enough to try.

The faerie delegation has packed and left the palace by nightfall, not even a farewell feast to see them off. Lydia throws the feast anyway. Everybody in the kingdom breathes an easier sigh of relief with the faeries gone.

It may not last forever, but it’s nearly fall, and Lydia has other things to worry about. Contrary to popular belief, kingdoms do not, in fact, run themselves.

+++

Incidentally, while everybody else in court was bedazzled by the fae attachment, its reigning monarchs also managed to:

Dispatch a full detachment of knights to survey and reinforce posts all along the northern border with Canadia for the first time in years. (Mostly Scott’s doing, though people in the capitol wavered between considering it their king’s selfish pet project and crediting the whole idea to General Hale.)

Begin work improving and constructing several new roads linking the Central Valley with the rest of the kingdom beyond. (Entirely on Lydia, who was more than willing to throw a tantrum about the inaccessibility of rare mountain moonfruit in the capitol if it meant an easier time of transporting raw copper ore down and fresh fruit and grain back up.)

Secure the promise of highly lucrative future trade agreements from the ambassador of Hawai’i, which had pulled back significantly in diplomatic terms since the height of Lydia’s parents reign. (Also largely Lydia. She let Danny have this one. The ambassador is his first cousin, and it will cut down on the number of letters he gets from his grandmother wanting to know if he’s married yet.)

Reduce the number of people in the city’s overcrowded prisons by almost a third, mostly debtors, petty thieves, political dissenters and children. (Nobody was shy about giving Scott credit for this. It’s the latest sign that the king is a lunatic and the throne’s gone completely to the dogs, says the word around town.)

(Well, unless you ask the residents of the Saltrock and Bottom Well neighborhoods, but honestly. If their opinions counted for anything, why would so many of them end up thrown into prison in the first place?)

+++

The rumors change after the elves leave, but not by as much as Scott expects. Half the court seems ready to believe that the elves really did just pack up and go all on their own. Lydia doesn’t seem to mind, but seriously, do their subjects really think they just sit around and do nothing all day?

“Yes they do, now go tell Lydia we’re taking a month and going back to Beacon Hills,” Stiles informs him. “Tell her it’s your mom’s birthday or something.”

“My mom’s birthday is in February,” Scott says, and Stiles rolls his eyes.

“Then tell her she made you liege lord and now you feel obligated to go help with the harvest or something. Come on, we’ve got to get going, like, yesterday. Tomorrow if we have to.”

“You want me to lie to Lydia so we can go back home for a month to help with the harvest?” Scott asks skeptically. Stiles heaves the kind of long-suffering, put-upon sigh that Scott is pretty sure people aren’t supposed to aim at the king.

“First of all, if we were actually going back to help with the harvest it wouldn’t be a lie, and second of all, I want you to lie to Lydia so we can take off for a month because according to my sources, Peter Hale is hiding two miles over the Argent border, a day and a half from Beacon Hills,” he says. “If we get going, we can be there in like a week. Now come on, I’ve got to pick out a dozen knights as an honor guard who’ll go along with everything we say and not tell Derek, and you’ve got to lie to your wife about being homesick.”

“Of course I’m homesick,” Scott says automatically. He’s been in the palace for almost a year, and he still wakes up mornings wondering where the predawn birdsong is and why nothing smells quite like home. Stiles thuds him on the shoulder approvingly.

“That’s the spirit,” he says. “You’ve already got it down. Now go con Lydia.”

Scott has to rehearse twice in his mirror before he meets Lydia for lunch, and ends up spitting out something garbled and nonsensical about Stiles and harvest festivals and his mom’s apple pie. Lydia doesn’t even look up from the paperwork she’s perusing, just waves at him with her left hand and then takes another sip of tea.

“Have fun,” she says. “Swing by and check on the border guard on your way home. They’re your project.”

“Yeah,” Scott says, for once both disoriented and intensely grateful that his relationship with Lydia isn’t even a little bit similar to the one he’d had with Allison. “Of course.”

And that’s that.

+++

They do stop in at Beacon Hills, for a day. It looks so much smaller than Scott remembers. Smaller and drabber and closer to falling down, and he hates what that says about what the capitol’s done to him in only one year.

Well. He can do something about the falling down part, anyway.

Scott takes a quick tour around the village and a quick headcount of his knights, and dispatches five of the ten of them to stay right here. Five knights can make enough noise and chaos to sound like twenty, if they put their minds to it, so Scott will have a new alibi, and Mrs. Stevenson will have a new roof. It’s the perfect arrangement.

Besides, seven people sneak better than twelve any day. Scott doesn’t mind having the extra steel at his back, but they’re only going after one man. All the force of arms in the world isn’t going to bring Peter Hale to justice if they can’t find him.

Slipping through the Argent border is just as easy as it ever was when they were teenagers. Stiles has a map scribbled out on a scrap of old leather and everything. All that’s missing is--

Well, lots of things are different this time. For one, there are five heavily-armed royal knights at his back, ready to follow his every command. For another, this isn’t like their childhood old treasure hunts, or even their raids over the Canadian border. If everything goes well, Peter Hale isn’t going to take a swift quarterstaff to the gut and a sickle blade to the throat. Lydia’s getting him alive.

+++

Three days past the Argentine border, south and well beyond the borders of Allison’s mother’s lands, there’s a tiny town that doesn’t look like it’s ever seen a single royal knight, Argent or otherwise. Following Stiles’ hasty map-checking and some silent gesticulating, they don’t even go in.

Peter Hale was last seen in a woodcutter’s shack two miles from the edge of the village. Stiles’ information says he’s living alone, no sign of the maidservant who fled the country with him. Scott signals Sir Isaac, who trained with Derek but trusts Scott better, and the knights melt off into the trees.

Scott hands Stiles his armor piece by piece, his glaive, the gold-crusted sword belt he mostly wears because Lydia insists on a good show. He keeps his belt axe, the kind of thing he’d have carried even as a peasant, mostly because he’d look more suspicious without it. Then he walks the last half mile through the evening woods alone, running his thumb over his wedding ring, to strike the ambush.

It’s hard to storm a house. Somebody needs to get Hale outside, and Scott’s is a face he definitely won’t have seen before.

There’s a flickering candle lit on the other side of the window. Scott raps on the door and tries to make himself look pathetic and a little scared.

It’s harder than he would have expected. Peter Hale assassinated a foreign head of state, trapped Lydia inside her own body, ran North Cali practically unopposed for years, probably murdered his own niece. He’s a dangerous man. Scott probably _should_ be scared, but right now, standing at the man’s front door, he’s mostly just so coldly furious it makes him sick to his stomach.

Well, looking sick’s as good as scared, Scott guesses, and the door swings open.

The man behind the door looks younger than Scott expected, somehow. His clothes are rough, but something in his hair, his skin, the look around his eyes, hasn’t quite lost that highborn gloss. He’s handsome. He looks a like the sort of man Lydia might flirt with at a ball, for fun, for politics, to make Scott jealous.

She probably did flirt with him at some ball, once. Back before he took all Lydia’s trust and the trust of the whole kingdom, and got halfway to destroying them both.

“Can I help you?” asks Peter Hale, glancing at the woods quizzically. Scott takes a step back and raises his hands to show that he’s unarmed.

“I’ve been trying to get to Little Ashford for almost three days,” Scott says, as sheepish as he can manage. “At first I was pretty sure I was lost, and now I _know_ I’m lost. Is there any way I can come in and look at a map with you?”

“Little Ashford?” Peter asks. It’s another day’s walk in the opposite direction of the closest town, Scott checked on their way here. “All by yourself?” He’s suspicious. Scott takes one more half step back. There’s much more than an arm’s length between them now.

“It was only supposed to take two days. I’m just trying to find out what happened to my wife,” Scott says, and it rings so true that suddenly Scott’s worried the rest of his lies won’t work by comparison. “She was visiting her sister, and I haven’t heard from her.” Peter still looks unsure, so Scott adds another piece of pure truth: “I just want her to be alright.”

“What’s her name?” Peter asks.

“Allison,” says Scott. Lydia will forgive him, right? “Her sister’s name is Melissa.” His mom will definitely forgive him.

“Well, I can certainly point you in the right direction,” Peter says, moving forward and right out of the doorway to close the conversational distance. “You’re not going to get anywhere tonight, so I’d try for a bed or a barn loft down in Glasscreek, that way. You said you had a map?”

“Yeah, just--” Scott fumbles the map, unfolding it. It’s a big, flimsy paper thing that definitely needs to be opened against a table, or at least a wall. Peter rolls his eyes and grabs a corner, helping Scott stretch it out against the side of the house.

They’re still only two steps from the threshold, and Peter is closer to the door than Scott, but Scott is close enough to put the edge of his axe through Peter’s throat. He won’t. He doesn’t kill in cold blood, and Peter is Lydia’s to deal with. But. He could.

“This is where we are,” Peter says, and Scott’s hand shoots out to grab Peter by the wrist. Peter looks up at him, but doesn’t try to jerk away, not yet. Maybe it’s that Scott’s grip feels as tight and fixed as iron.

“You didn’t ask my name,” Scott says.

“Would I know it?” asks Peter quietly. There’s a crunching of dead leaves, rapid, the sound of running-- _now_ Peter tries to pull away, but Scott has the leverage to yank him back, slam him up against the wall, pin Peter against the side of the house with all his weight and strength. He’d never hold it for long, but he doesn’t have to. There’s Isaac with his sword already drawn, and Boyd blocking the door, steel blades all around them.

“So,” Peter grunts, while Scott pulls back just far enough for somebody to come and bind Peter’s hands with rope. “You must be Scott.”

+++

They treat Peter well enough, for a prisoner. He’s gagged and blindfolded while they ride, Stiles insists upon it, because Peter was a general, a sorcerer, and a politician in his day and there’s no telling which one could make him more dangerous now. Scott makes sure he gets the chance to unbend his legs and relieve himself whenever the knights stop for breaks.

If Lydia doesn’t kill him by her own hand, the executioner will. Scott’s not going to stop them. He’s not as good of a man as he’d hoped to be when he was younger, before he had to go to war. He’s not as good of a man as he used to be, maybe.

It didn’t used to feel like every soldier’s sword and headsman’s axe that landed a blow came right from Scott’s hand. He never thought he’d grow up to be a king.

Peter makes it all the way to the old stone garrison half a mile out from the city walls in one piece. Scott leaves him chained in loneliest, most secure cell in the entire place. He hasn’t tried to escape. Not once.

Scott goes to see Lydia.

+++

Lydia is sitting down to a late lunch alone in her chambers when Scott comes back. He’s filthy with road dust and reeking of horses. It’s possible that Lydia’s missed him. Just a little.

“I’m not kissing you until you take a bath,” Lydia informs her husband. He stands there in the doorway, frozen, hesitant. Lydia frowns at him.

“Scott, what is it?” she asks. “Don’t tell me, you forgot to bring me an anniversary present for next week.”

“I definitely didn’t forget to bring you something.” Scott squares his shoulders and looks her right in the eye. “I got you Peter Hele,” he says. “Whatever you want to do with him. He’s yours.”

Lydia’s breath chokes to a stop in her throat. “Where?” she manages to croak out, somehow.

“He’s in the garrison just outside the walls,” says Scott. Was that Lydia’s question? Does she even want to know where Scott found him, or how, or how long he’s been looking? “I didn’t want people in the palace talking about him before you knew, so, now you know.”

“Take me to him,” Lydia says, even though the rush of cold through her veins seems to have numbed her hands and feet and stiffened her joints, until moving feels strange and slow.

“Now?” Scott asks. Lydia glances down at her hands, still resting on the table next to her lunch things.

“No,” says Lydia. “I need to change clothes first.”

+++

She goes to see Peter in a pair of breeches and one of Scott’s old shirts, belted in at the waist. Dungeons are filthy, and these in particular can’t have been cleaned in years.

She lets Scott hold her hand once they leave the castle and lose themselves in the city streets, but drops it once they reach the garrison. Lydia’s still not completely sure what she’s planning on doing here, but. She’ll need both hands for it.

There are guards at the front door that bow stiffly when they come in, guards at the entrance to the dungeon, four more guards stationed around Peter’s cell. Lydia nods, and they back off a respectful distance down the hall.

Peter really is shackled in the middle of his cell, bound on his knees to the floor with his wrists strung by long chains from the highest point of opposite walls, pulling his arms up and wide. He can’t see. He can’t speak.

Lydia’s going to need him to speak.

“You can go now, Scott,” she says. Peter’s head doesn’t move at the sound of her voice, but he’s stripped down to almost nothing, and Lydia can see his shoulders and collarbone tense up.

“Are you sure?” Scott sounds so worried. Lydia makes herself look at him, smiles as softly as she can.

“It’s okay,” she says. Scott hates torture. “Go take a bath and find out what you’ve missed while you were gone.”

It’s a dungeon. There’s a rack of whips somewhere around here. There are four guards just down the hall if Lydia needs a gopher.

She waits until Scott’s hesitant footsteps echo off down the hall before she steps into the cell.

It’s Peter, in the flesh, in solid reality outside of her nightmares. Peter Hale. Lydia knows his face better than her mother’s, better than Scott’s, better than her own. They were friends, once. Almost as close as lovers.

And then closer still, of course, but that hadn’t been by Lydia’s choice.

Her fingers trace through the air a hairsbreadth from his cheek. It’s good that he’s on his knees. She can reach him this way. He moves his head towards her hand, and Lydia yanks it away.

Then she reaches back, tentatively, and slides the gag from his mouth. She can’t face Peter’s eyes yet and couldn’t trust herself alone with him if she saw them, but his voice. She needs to hear his voice. She needs to hear it screaming.

“Well,” says Lydia, pulling the cotton gently free. “Here we are.”

“Your majesty,” says Peter. “Would you believe that I’ve missed your company?”

Lydia doesn’t even realize she’s pulled her hand back until the crack of her palm against his face is ringing in her ears. Peter’s whole head snaps back with the force of the blow.

“Well,” he says. Lydia can see him prod at the inside of his mouth with his tongue, as if to make sure she hadn’t knocked anything loose. She didn’t. Yet. “Here we go.”

+++

The ironic thing is, it’s Peter who taught Lydia how to torture someone.

When she was young, and her parents were King and Queen, and Talia Hale was their closest advisor, Peter was the one to lay a whip in a little princess’s hand and show her how to use it. She learned more from watching him, from Peter’s thoughts when they invaded her own head, from the psychological tricks and techniques he so loved to use on her. If she had time right now, if she could stand to leave this room and calm down and come back later, could somehow keep this building, terrified wave of anguish and pure _fury_ from sweeping her away even as she crashed down around Peter’s ears--well, she could show him new reasons to hate earthworms.

Some of the things Lydia wants to do with small iron things and fire, she worked out herself. She’s a very creative woman. Peter always said so.

She’ll throw up later. She’ll have nightmares later. She’s crying _now_ , she thinks, there are tears on her face, but Lydia dashes them away with the back of her wrist. Peter Hale is in front of her now. If she does this with her own two hands, if she turns him from a man into nothing but worm meat, if she watches his skin split and listens to him scream, then it will be _over_ with. Peter will have what he deserves. Lydia will be free. It will be over with.

She sags back against the stone wall of the cell and wipes at her face again. One of the guards hurries in with a jug of water; Lydia gulps at it thirstily, and hopes any tear tracks manage to look like sweat. She doesn’t know how long she’s been down here, but Peter’s still conscious. She’s been careful of that.

“Him too,” she croaks, when she’s swallowed as much water as she dares without making herself sick. It’s exhausting, doing this. If Lydia ever sleeps again, she might never get up.

The guard holds the mouth of the jug to Peter’s lips and lets the water slosh over his face. Some of it must get in his mouth, Lydia can see him swallowing. Good enough.

“Fine,” Lydia says abruptly. “Leave us.”

“Yes, your majesty.” Lydia will need to find out who the guards are, out here, make sure they don’t talk. This doesn’t need to be common knowledge. The queen isn’t supposed to wield her own whip.

“Do I dare hope for a five minute reprieve?” Peter rasps out. Lydia gazes at him dully. His back is bloody.

“Five minutes,” she says. She’ll be able to stand up again after that.

“My thanks,” says Peter, and lets his head sag forward.

Not even a minute later, he’s lifting his chin up again. “Scott wasn’t what I expected,” Peter says. His voice is too harsh and gravelly for the light, patronizing, always-amused tone of voice Lydia remembers so well. “At least he seems smarter than Jackson. Nicer, too, which worries me for the fate of the kingdom. Short.”

“I don’t remember asking your opinion,” Lydia says.

“He’s a good match for you,” says Peter. “He’s obviously very much in love with you.”

“He is not,” Lydia snaps.

“Don’t tell me,” Peter starts, and then wheezes on an inhale and starts gasping for breath. Lydia counts the seconds. If he starts to go blue in the face, she’ll have to step in. She wants to kill him herself. By the time Lydia reaches forty, Peter’s subsided.

“Are you done?” she asks tartly.

“Don’t tell me you’re not in love with him,” Peter gasps, a little breathier than before. “That’s my Lydia. Always the heartbreaker.”

“My relationship with my husband is none of your business,” says Lydia. “I don’t know why you think this is a conversation. I’m in the middle of torturing you to death.”

“I’d noticed,” Peter says. “All else being equal, I wouldn’t mind if you got on with the ‘death’ part.”

“You think you get a say in that?” Lydia demands. It’s enough to force her to her feet, even though the room is still a little wobbly. “Here, and now, when you’re completely at my mercy, you think you can dictate terms to me? Still?”

“Call it the dying request of an old friend,” Peter says, and Lydia’s vision hazes into red.

“You’re going to beg me,” Lydia says. “Not because you want to, not because you _choose_ to as part of your plan, but because you’re going to be in so much agony that for once in your life, you don’t have a choice. You’re in chains, Peter. You have no control left. You’re going to feel _fear_ , for once in your life. You’re going to be afraid of me.”

“That’s my Lydia,” Peter says, and then Lydia’s groping hand finds the handle of her whip once again.

+++

It takes a long time for Peter to die.

She does make him beg, before the end. Not for long. Lydia can’t quite bear the broken note of it for long. But then, Peter’s voice doesn’t hold out much beyond that anyway.

She doesn’t take off his blindfold until after she’s cut his throat. She doesn’t dare.

When he’s finally dead, when the body sags in its chains like so much meat, Lydia tells the guards to cut off his head and stick it on a pike for somebody to present in court later. Evidence of victory is good. Dismembering your enemies’ bodies is better.

+++

By the time Lydia finally makes it back to the palace, it’s long past sundown. By the time she manages to force herself out of her bath, after scrubbing every last fleck of dirt or blood from her skin, she’s missed dinner by hours. She’s not all that hungry, anyway.

Lydia feels peculiarly numb, distant from so many of her old fears. Free. She should try to sleep tonight. After today, she’s exhausted.

Peter Hale is dead in front of her eyes, by her very own hand. His body is going to be burned and the skeleton will be buried in the salted field outside the city walls, where traitors lay and nothing ever grows. His head will go up on a pike over the walls of the castle as an example to all.

Lydia is either going to have the worst nightmares of her life tonight, or she’s going to sleep perfectly, safely sound all night through. She still doesn’t know which yet.

Scott is waiting in their bedchamber, already down to his nightclothes, hesitating. They haven’t been together in almost a month, not in any way--not for sex, not for sleeping, not even for a real conversation. Today barely counts.

Scott hates torture, but he’s here waiting for her. Lydia _missed_ him while he was gone. _He’s obviously very much in love with you,_ said Peter.

Peter’s always been a liar, and falling in love was never part of the deal. Scott’s not in love with her, and Lydia isn’t going to have to break his heart after what he did for her today. Still. Lydia thinks, just maybe, that she’d like to be held tonight.

“Can we leave the candles on?” she asks, voice quavering, and Scott nods.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go to sleep.”

+++

On the anniversary of her wedding, the queen wears gold.

She and the king descend the grand staircase into the ballroom arm in arm, clad in the richest satins and silks. They smile at each other like a couple in love. They smile at everyone they meet like they haven’t a care in the world.

It’s hard to tell which one is the flower and which the viper beneath. Their placid, bovine king strode into the Great Hall two weeks ago with the traitor Peter Hale’s head fixed to the point of a pike. Their transparently shallow queen never fully explained just why the faeries left, last summer.

It just might be possible that Scott and Lydia are _dangerous_. Not a pair to cross. Not, quite, a pair to trust.

On the anniversary of their wedding, Scott wears royal North Cali red and thanks his every well-wisher by name, and Lydia wears shimmering, resplendent gold and charms a swathe through her courtiers, and nobody knows just exactly what to make of them at all. When they come together on the dance floor, every eye in the room is on them.

They keep their eyes on each other, because Lydia is good enough that she can guide Scott through the steps without anyone quite realizing how hard he’s working not to crush her toes, but it’s a little more difficult than it sounds. He’s better than he used to be, at least. She’ll tease him about it later.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings:
> 
> Some discussion of Peter taking over Lydia's mind in ways similar to canon for a much longer period of time, and Lydia's ongoing recovery from the experience. Later, Peter is captured (by Scott), tortured, and killed (by Lydia), which mostly takes place off-screen.


End file.
